


out in the rain suddenly everything changed

by sternenrotz



Series: broken hearts hurt but they make us strong (queer horror verse) [5]
Category: The Horrors (Band)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Pining, Trans Female Character, art school projects, coffee shop date that's cliché, faris is socially awkward but he always is, gay bars, just a bit of it though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:32:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternenrotz/pseuds/sternenrotz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faris hates clubs, but he likes the pretty DJ girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	out in the rain suddenly everything changed

**Author's Note:**

> titled after "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes.
> 
> set in 2005. as always, Rhys is a trans girl and her chosen name is Dilys, and Faris is currently identifying as a bisexual cis man.
> 
> content warning for typical insensitiveness coming from (at-the-time-identifying-as) cis folks. also, while I don't condone the usage of the term "biological man/woman" and am aware of the reasons why it's problematic, "cisgender" didn't enter general usage outside of academic circles until several years later and thus it's the term Dilys uses in this fic.

Faris has never liked clubs.

Actually, no, that’s not quite the right way to phrase it. Faris likes booze, and a bit of loud music if it’s good. He’s not opposed to a dance with a bird or a fit bloke, either, once he’s hit a level of sloshed where he’s no longer self-conscious about how long his limbs are.

Really, it’s more that Faris has never liked forced small talk with strangers, especially not in an environment that’s so completely unsuited to having a conversation. _Especially_ especially not when one of his opponents is pressed sweatily against his side and keeps exhaling his beer-ridden breath straight into Faris’ face. Faris hates beer.

They’re all crowded together in one booth of this indie club, Tom, Faris, and a number of blokes Tom knows from somewhere, because Tom knows everyone. Tonight is a gay night. _Gay as in Happy Mondays_ , is what it said on the flier, which, Faris is sure, sounded a lot less clunky in the promoter’s head.

On principle, Faris’ dislike for gay clubs isn’t any greater than the dislike he’s got for straight clubs. The music’s usually worse, but in exchange the drinks are cheaper, and usually he finds himself some bloke to pay for them, too. Tonight, though, he’s almost completely stone-cold-sober because he’s got a lesson at nine o’clock tomorrow and he didn’t want to come in the first place, save for a whiskey and coke one of Tom’s friends absolutely _insisted_ on.

Who goes out for a drink to a club on a Monday night, _anyway_ , except then the sweaty bloke next to Faris asks him, “So, what do you do?” for what feels like the third time and instantly provides an answer to that question.

“I do art,” Faris says and doesn’t bother with the snarky response he’s got in the back of his throat because it’s wasted on this type of guy either way. “St Martin’s College, illustration. I’m a first year.” He’s not sure his opponent is listening when he says that, either.

He reaches for his glass of water on the table and feels the coldness between his fingers before he sips from the straw. At least the music’s good at this particular night, some mix of new wave and the camper side of britpop with the odd 60s psychedelic song slipped in.

Tom leans in and asks, “You okay, Faz? Still having fun?”

“I hate it here,” Faris says back and has to speak up even when his mouth’s only a few inches from Tom’s ear. “I hate these people and I hate going out on weeknights.”

Tom, being Tom, just laughs at him for that of course. “But you like the DJ,” he says. “You can’t stop staring at her.”

Faris can’t say he’s _wrong_ about that. There’s two DJs on tonight, a stout small woman with dyed hair who Faris presumes is the resident of this night, obviously a lesbian, and the other one that, Tom is halfway correct in his assessment, Faris keeps sneaking glances towards.

Her name’s Spider, according to the fliers and the poster by the entrance, or more specifically, _SPECIAL GUEST: SPIDER WEBB of Southend-on-Sea’s JUNK CLUB_. She’s tall for a girl, slender with skinny arms and pointy elbows, small waist and slim-but-there hips accentuated by her glittery mini dress. There’s glitter on her face, too, all around her eyes so it sparkles like a galaxy underneath the flashing lights, makes her look like some radiant extraterrestrial being. Probably a lesbian, too.

“You should go talk to her, come on,” Tom eggs Faris on, close enough now that his nose meets the shell of Faris’ ear.

Faris wants to cringe. He _really_ hates being the only one who’s sober. He hates Tom when he’s drunk, too, when he gets hyped up and obnoxiously extroverted and _grabby_. Only twenty more minutes of this, then Faris will make up some bullshit excuse to go home.

“See if she’s up for it.”

“I just think she’s pretty, is all,” Faris says back. “As if most of the birds here aren’t gay either way.”

“You never know unless you strike up a conversation.”

Tom’s the kind of handsy drunk where he’s so slick in his moves Faris genuinely can’t tell how long Tom’s hand’s been on his side. A _sleazy_ drunk, too, the type who wiggles his eyebrows and flashes Faris a crooked grin while suggesting he should pull a potential lesbian. If Tom gets back to the flat, which is likely considering he almost exclusively tries to pull girls at clubs, Faris is definitely going to pretend he’s already asleep.

“Tell her about your art project, you get me?”

Faris’ stupid project for his portrait drawing class that’s due at the end of term and that’s only maybe a third done. And that could really use another female model or two, especially one that looks like an androgynous space alien. Still, he wants to tell Tom to quiet down first of all, because he _really_ isn’t looking to pull tonight.

One of the DJs put on Blur, though, so right then, Tom and his obnoxious mates break out in a sing along to “Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls,” and Faris decides that’s his cue to leave.

He gets a hand squeezing his bum when he weasels out of the booth, of which he _really_ hopes it’s Tom’s wishing him good luck and not one of the sweaty blokes, and he slinks through the crowd towards the DJ pult. There’s limbs everywhere, because apparently he’s the only one here who doesn’t like Blur, so Faris tries to make his moves somewhat resemble actual dance moves, and also _really_ tries to not elbow anyone too hard.

“Excuse me?”

Faris has to truly shout it now, what’s with how much louder the music is by the speakers next to the mixing pult.

“Hey,” the DJ whose name is almost certainly Spider says back, drawing it out with tipsiness. Her voice is lower than Faris would have expected, low and smoky and pleasant. She smells of flowers and whiskey.

“Hey. You, you’re Spider Webb, aren’t you?”

“That’s me,” Spider shouts back, except when she does it she sounds genuinely enthusiastic and not nerve-ridden the way Faris assumes _he_ does. “What can I do for you, big boy?”

 _Big boy_. Faris’ heart does a high jump up towards his throat at the nickname, although he can’t pretend that it isn’t the obvious choice. He’s a bit taller than Spider even with the four-odd inches the tiny stage adds, and much bigger in general, too, her hand doll-dainty and yet warm on Faris’ shoulder. Even her _face_ is dainty, with a teensy nose and pink little lips, although she’s got runway-model cheekbones to balance the composition.

“Well, I.”

Faris clears his throat and leans a bit closer to Spider’s ear. He really, _really_ dreads being the only sober one here.

“I just wanted to say, you’re very pretty, so I wanted to ask…”

Spider laughs at him, and it’s not a good laugh. Not in the least.

“I’m sorry,” she says, still laughing, “But I’ve already got a boyfriend.”

Way to go. She seems nervous too, now, underneath that happy-drunkenness plastered all over her face. Faris’ heart plummets in the opposite direction.

In that split second before Spider can turn away, Faris shouts back, “I’m sorry. It’s not like that, I just wanted to ask you to model for my art project?”

Way-to-fucking-go. Spider’s laughing right in his face now. She’s got an unfortunately braying laugh, and Faris feels a weird mixture of embarrassed and full-on-nauseous.

“It’s for my portrait class,” he adds, hopes it sounds casual, and, because he’s got to be a pretentious twat about it, “I’m a first year at St Martin’s.”

Spider laughs at him some more, of course, and she says, “Look, I’m busy right now, I don’t have time for this, but. How about you give me your number, and I’ll give you a ring?”

The sensation Faris experiences can be best described as his heart turning upside down in his chest cavity, his fingers shaky when he fumbles for his moleskine and pen in his jacket. He hopes it’s halfway legible when he scrawls his digits down onto one page, adds a chicken-scratch _FARIS_ next to it and rips it off clean.

“Here you go.”

“Cool.” Spider beams a big uneven smile and slips the folded-up paper into her dress, presumably to snag underneath her bra strap. “It was nice to meet you, Faz, but you’ll excuse me…”

Faris doesn’t protest the nickname this time, either. He doesn’t have _time_ to, because as soon as she’s said it, Spider raises her spindly arms up above her head just in time for the chorus and swings away into the opposite direction of where Faris came from.

It takes Faris longer to make his way back to their booth this time round. By the time he’s close enough to make eye contact with Tom the last few seconds of ‘Girls & Boys’ are ringing out across the room, bloody _finally_. Tom’s wiggling his brows and waving his hand around, _thumbs up or thumbs down_?

Faris pulls his face into some vague grimace and shakes his head, hopes he can get at least something across with that so Tom won’t pester him with lewd questions too much when he’s sat back down. Only fifteen more minutes of this.

Except right then, instead of the next song, Spider’s voice comes out from the speakers. “Due to the overwhelming response I’m going to play this song for a second time. You’re welcome.”

Faris takes that as his cue to leave. He really hopes Tom will understand if he just texts him instead.

He doesn’t really expect Spider to call him back, honestly. Not after he probably made himself look like a creep in front of her, and he especially doesn’t expect her to call in the middle of his fucking nine AM class. The girl next to him shoots him a dirty look when he gets up to duck out the door, mobile tootling and buzzing in his hand, and he takes a deep breath before he actually accepts the call.

“Hello?”

“Faris?” the voice on the other end says back, obviously Spider’s even if she sounds a bit scratchy. “It’s me, Spider.”

“Hey.”

“Hey.” She laughs. “So I just wanted to ask about your project, if you want us to meet to discuss details, and, you know. So you can actually draw me?”

Despite the scratchiness, she doesn’t sound hungover in the least, and the part of Faris that didn’t get enough sleep, too anxious and too self-conscious, that part’s silently bitter about it.

“Yeah,” Faris just says back. “Sorry, you’ve just caught me at a bad time, I’ve got a class on right now.”

“Sorry.” Spider laughs again. “D’you want me to call you back later?”

“No, no, I was just saying. Let’s just work something out really quick, let’s go for coffee. So we can get to know each other.”

“Yeah, sure. When are you free?”

“I don’t know, well, I mean. When are you free?”

“My schedule at work is flexible, all up to you.”

“Okay. Thursday afternoon, at four? At that café right across from the club last night?” Faris just names the first place that pops into his mind.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Great.”

“So… see you then, Faris?”

“Yeah. See you, Spider.”

She laughs some more. “It’s Dilys.”

She spells it out, then, and Faris laughs back at her. His guts are starting to feel like they aren’t trying to all strangle each other, finally.

“Okay. See you on Thursday, Dilys.”

On the actual day of their date, which really doesn’t classify as a date, Faris shows up ten minutes early. Turns out the café that he thought looked nice as he and Tom were queueing for the club is the vegan one that just opened, so he orders himself a cappuccino with almond milk and waits. Then, he waits another ten minutes past four until he can see Dilys crossing the street through the window.

She looks different dressed-down, less ethereal than before but still with some vague alien aura about her in her denim jacket and striped top. She’s got a boy with her this time, too, her apparent boyfriend, a small boy with dyed-dark hair who’s wearing tighter jeans than she is. Then they kiss each other by the doors, and Faris is _definitely_ sure it’s her boyfriend.

He does feel a bit creepy watching them talk and say goodbye to each other, especially when Dilys is facing the window and this close to making eye contact. Then she does, she waves and Faris waves back, and she swaps some more words with her boyfriend. They hug each other one last time, and that’s it.

Dilys pushes the door open and Faris sips his cooled-down vegan cappuccino and hopes that’s enough to stop his nerves from consuming him.

“Hi big boy,” Dilys says when she slides into the booth right next to Faris, and… That’s that.

“Hey.”

Dilys reaches her arms out for a loose hug, and Faris goes in for it, however hesitantly. She smells like flowers again.

“I didn’t think you would be a vegan.”

“I’m not,” Faris says back. “But their food is alright, so. You know.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Dilys waves the waitress over and orders, some sort of blended juice and a gluten-free muffin, smiling all the way and making small talk. Faris feels all too small next to her in addition to the feeling of being too big and long that he normally gets around people.

“Only a moment,” the waitress says.

Dilys turns to Faris with a big expectant smile. “So. How’ve you been?”

“I’m good, cheers,” Faris says back. “You?”

“Yeah, me too.” And she laughs.

Faris is _really_ bad at social interaction.

The waitress returns with Dilys’ order just when the silence settling between them is starting to get awkward, and Dilys says, “Thanks.”

She starts to break the muffin into two crumbly halves with her fork and asks, “D’you want some of this?”

“Yeah, sure.” Faris picks up a crumb and chews thoughtfully, before he asks, “So that bloke who dropped you off, was that your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“So you actually have one,” Faris says and laughs. “Was worried you just said you did because I was scaring you or something.”

“No, no.” Dilys laughs along with him, probably the first time that she isn’t laughing _at_ him, and she pops a crumb of gluten-free muffin into her mouth. “I mean, I wasn’t really _scared_ of you. Mainly I just thought you were kind of weird.”

“Okay.” Technically, Faris isn’t sure if that truly _is_ okay, but then, he’s been called many things far worse than just weird. “So that means you’re bisexual?”

Dilys laughs again, all delicate with one hand in front of her mouth, and Faris feels weirdly embarrassed, like he just said something immensely stupid.

“‘cause you were DJing at a gay club, after all.”

“No, no, I’m completely straight.” She moves in across the table so she can say the next part into Faris’ ear, her dainty little nose brushing against his cheek, and Faris feels a weird shudder of _something_ run through him. Dilys says, “I’m one of those scary transgender women,” and she laughs some more.

Oh.

“Oh,” Faris says out loud, and because he realises just as soon as he’s said it that he’s just made himself look like a huge wanker, he adds, “That’s cool, I mean. ‘cause of diversity. For my project.”

Dilys just looks at him like she’s about to start laughing again, and decidedly _at_ him, not with him, at that.

“But you really can’t tell, you know? Like, I wouldn’t have guessed just by looking. You’re really convincing, I mean.” That really isn’t making it better, so Faris finally says, “I’m making an arse out of myself right now, right?”

“You really are,” Dilys says and picks another crumb off her muffin.

“Sorry.” Faris reaches out and helps himself to a bit of muffin as well, maybe that’ll ease his nerves. “I’m not good at people-ing.”

“Wouldn’t have guessed that,” Dilys shoots back, and she smirks, a fantastically-evil little glint in her eyes that Faris probably would fall in love with on some level if it wasn’t directly aimed at him.

“Yeah. Plus I’ve never met anyone who was the T part of the acronym before.”

“You know that’s just what we _want_ you to think.” She laughs.

“Yeah,” Faris says, for lack of anything less inane, but he laughs along either way.

“You should tell me about your project.”

“My project.”

“About why you chat up random girls in clubs because you want to paint them.” And she laughs again.

“Draw them,” Faris corrects. “It’s for my portrait drawing class. My end of term portfolio.”

He fidgets some more and drinks another sip of his cappuccino, and Dilys just keeps watching him intently with a hint of that evil little smirk around her mouth, still.

“We need to do a series of portraits with one common theme, except all our models need to be people not on the course, so I thought I’d do mine on queer kids in London.”

Now that he’s said it out loud, Faris reflexively wonders if that sounds really stupid. To his relief, it apparently doesn’t, or at least Dilys has stopped giving him that look. Instead she’s now beaming the most radiant smile at him.

“Are you…?” she starts, and Faris can already figure out how that question’s going to end.

“Bisexual,” he says. “And I’ve got a boyfriend, but it’s an open relationship. Nothing serious.”

He’s not sure how he feels about calling Tom his boyfriend, but he supposes they might as well be that.

Dilys laughs, a nice laugh, for once, and she doesn’t cover her mouth with her hand this time, either. She’s prettier when she smiles, even with her crooked front teeth, and her whole face glows with it so Faris can’t help but smile back.

“That’s cool. I mean, if it’s cool for you.”

“It is, I guess.” Faris isn’t really sure what else to say. He’s _really_ got to work on his people skills.

Dilys coughs, and he mirrors it.

“So why exactly did you want to meet up? I mean, you said we should get to know each other, but you know… I’ve got a boyfriend and it’s serious.”

“Oh,” Faris says once again, and he really hopes he doesn’t sound overtly disappointed or anything. “I mean, it wasn’t meant like that, I do this with all my subjects. I just ask them to tell me about their life experiences, what it’s like for them being queer.”

Well, so far he only met at the student union for drinks with each of the two guys he’s sketched so far, but the principle applies.

“Cool.” Dilys sips her juice, which is a weird colour between pink and orange, and she asks, “So, what would you like to know?”

“Well, I’m not big on asking questions, so I don’t know. Just…” Faris coughs and hopes he’s not sounding like a huge twat _again_. “How did you notice you were trans?”

Dilys laughs at him again, just the quiet, gentle laugh where she hides her mouth behind one hand, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less vicious.

“Okay, first of all,” she says, “You don’t just have a definite moment where you look at it and say, oh, I’m trans. It’s not like thinking to yourself, hey, I’d like to snog Graham Coxon, I guess that means I like boys.”

“Sorry.” Faris laughs, even through that nauseous embarrassment that’s up in his gut and choking round his throat, and it sounds _somewhat_ genuine to his own ears, at least. “Graham Coxon?”

“Yeah, I used to think he was really fit. I queued up seven hours while it was snowing to get tickets, when Blur came to Southend when I was fourteen.”

Faris doesn’t know what to say. “That’s pretty crazy.” Except for that.

“It was.” Dilys sips her juice and laughs. “But it was worth it, so.”

“At least there’s that.” Faris coughs, a genuine cough. “So if you don’t really have a moment when you found out, what would you… How did you come to terms with it?” He coughs again, but this time, it’s the fidgety type of cough where he only does it to calm his already buzzing nerves. “Or you can just tell me what you’d like to, you know?”

“Alright.”

Dilys gives him that fantastically bright smile again, and Faris wants to sketch it on a page at the back of his notebook just for himself. He doesn’t, though. Instead he opens his moleskine to the first blank page and writes DILYS in big block letters at the top of it.

“I’ll just take some notes,” he says, when he notices how her eyes follow the pen. “Kind of have to.”

“I don’t mind.” She makes a tiny amused noise inside her mouth and reaches for another crumb of the muffin. “So, my name’s Dilys Somerset Webb, I’m twenty-two, and I’m trans. I came out to my family when I was sixteen.”

Dilys tells him that she’s always been really girly as a child, and she laughs and says, “I’ve got like, the stereotypical trans coming out story.”

Faris doesn’t know what to say.

“My parents never really minded that I liked playing with dolls and that I wanted to do ballet, you know. But they told me that I wouldn’t be allowed to wear the pretty dress for recitals, ‘cause boys can’t do that, and then I didn’t want to do ballet that much anymore.”

Faris laughs.

“They were really young parents, you know, so they weren’t conservative or anything. And also I had a younger sister and a couple of female cousins our age who I saw on the weekends, so they probably just thought a lot of it was because of that. But they always encouraged it, and I wasn’t really bullied as a child ‘cause most of the girls at school were my friends. So I’d say I had a nice childhood.”

“How’d your parents react when you came out?”

Dilys is a fast talker, the type who contorts her face almost grotesquely when she emotes. The words bubble and gush and flow out from her mouth when Faris is still taking notes on the ballet thing. One of the reasons he asks that question is to give himself some time to catch up, but also to stop her from rambling herself off into an unrelated direction. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy her rambling on about pretty much any subject otherwise, but he’s got to stay focussed for now.

Dilys makes that same tiny noise once again and sips her juice. “They were both really accepting, my mum even more than my dad. She actually picked out my new name for me.”

“Why’d she come up with Dilys?” Well, it _is_ a pretty unusual name.

“Well, her side of the family’s Welsh, so all of us children have Welsh names too, and she wanted me to carry on with the tradition with my new name. Like, of course she said I could always pick my name myself if I didn’t like any of the ones she came up with, but she really liked Dilys ‘cause of how it sounded, she actually wanted to name my sister that at first, and then ‘cause my mum has this big book of welsh names I went and looked it up, and I found out it means _genuine_. So I thought it was really fitting.” She smiles, and Faris smiles back almost too easily. “‘cause this is who I was meant to be, and I’m just as much of a woman as any biological woman, so.”

“Yeah, I got that much,” Faris says, and he underlines GENUINE twice on his notebook page. “That’s really cool, though, you know? That you got to pick out a name that specifically had meaning to you.” He feels like he should have more to say than that, so he adds, “‘cause my name’s Arabic, and it means _knight_ , but I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t know that when they picked it out.”

Dilys makes that same tiny noise once again and reaches for her juice. “Where’re your parents from?”

“My dad’s from Palestine. Mum’s from East Yorkshire,” Faris says, and he takes yet another crumb of the muffin.

Then a little while after that, after they’ve gotten lost in conversation about childhood, Faris says, “Yeah. But this is supposed to be about you, isn’t it, not about me.”

“Yeah, sorry. So.”

“So.” Faris can’t help but smile again, and he says, “We were talking about how you came out.”

“Yeah. Like I said, I did it when I was sixteen. And it was over dinner, it was really weird ‘cause I started crying for basically no reason. I was just really nervous, and it wasn’t even my first time coming out of the closet, so maybe that’s one of the reasons my parents weren’t surprised.” She coughs and she says, “‘cause I came out as gay when I was fifteen.”

Later, when Faris asks her what she wants to do with her life, she says, “Well, I don’t really know yet. I’ve got a degree in fashion, so I guess I’d like to do that, but right now I’m just working at a vintage shop. But I make my own clothes a lot, I sewed that dress I wore the other night, you know, and I sell custom pieces sometimes through the shop ‘cause the owners are cool, so that’s  somewhat close to having my own clothing line, I guess.”

“Why’d you get into fashion?” Faris asks. “Any specific reason or do you just like it, or…?”

“Well, I’ve been into 60s fashion since I was really young, I was sneaking into London mod clubs when I was fourteen. And after I came out I started buying vintage dresses at charity shops and online, but obviously they weren’t made for girls with my build, so I had to learn how to sew so I could tailor them properly.”

She smiles and this time it’s her whole face that glows, her entire body, the way someone lights up only when they’re really passionate about something. Faris wants to kiss her. Only a little.

“So I guess it started out as just something I considered ‘cause it seemed interesting, and then I decided it was what I want to do so I can help out other girls like me, you know? ‘cause I know there’s companies that make bras and knickers specifically designed for trans women, which is cool, but I want to do it on a larger scale. Like, clothes designed for tall girls and dresses that fit when you’ve got no waist or hips, that kind of thing. Custom tailored if possible.”

“That’s really neat,” Faris says, and he really means it. He cracks his wrist and says, “Sorry, but you talk way too fast. I can barely keep up.”

“I‘m sorry.” Dilys shoves another crumb of muffin into her mouth, and she’s still smiling, like she just doesn’t get tired of it. “I can try to talk more slowly, if you want?”

“Yeah.” Faris lets his pen sink down to the page, though, and he says, “So you _really_ like the 60s?”

Eventually, after they’ve had a lengthy argument about girl groups, Dilys explains, “I don’t know for sure if I want the surgery yet. You know,” and she makes a V with both her hands, “ _The_ surgery, but that’s mainly ‘cause I’m a little bit scared of it.”

“Never had surgery before?”

“Never,” she confirms. “Like, I’m definitely starting hormones in half a year, hopefully, and I’m lucky so I can already pass for a woman with a deep-ish voice, but yeah.” She laughs and fidgets with her hands. “I don’t know about that part yet.”

“And your boyfriend doesn’t mind?” Faris says, and just as soon as he’s said it out loud, he realises he’s making himself sound like a wanker. _Again_. “Sorry. That was probably really rude.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“Sorry.”

“Rule number one. Don’t ask me about my dick.”

“Sorry,” Faris says for the third time and twists his pen in his hand in an effort to stay calm. “You don’t have to answer that question if you don’t want to, obviously.”

“He doesn’t mind,” Dilys says, very matter-of-fact. Apparently Faris makes a face when she does, because she laughs at him, again. “‘cause he loves me, you know, and he’s not an asshole. And he’s trans, too, so he really shouldn’t mind.”

“How’d you two meet?”

“We met at a club, actually. It was a really weird coincidence, like a one in a million odds. I run this club night in Southend once a month with a friend, and this one time I’m dancing with this small boy, and he seems into it, too, so I go in to snog him and he just freaks out and tells me he’s trans. Like, in the middle of the dancefloor and all.”

She laughs, a quiet, fond laugh, and Faris laughs along.

“So of course I have to go buy him a drink to calm him down, ‘cause it’s like his first time that he’s passing as a guy in public and I’m one of the first people he’s ever told, and I let him crash in my flat that night and after that we become friends, so a few months later it just kind of happened that we started going out. So, you know.”

She smiles again, and Faris doesn’t know what to say, again.

“How long have you been going out now?”

“Almost two years, I think.” Dilys reaches for what’s left of the muffin and says, “It’s kind of hard to remember.”

Faris _really_ hates how much he has to try to make his smile look genuine.

“I think you two would get along, though. Like, if you still need any trans boys for your project, for _diversity_ reasons, I’m sure he’ll want to help you out.”

“That’d be cool.”

Really, Faris doesn’t have any way to express how much he _doesn’t_ want to meet Dilys’ boyfriend, considering how weird that would be, but he also doesn’t want to chat up more strangers in clubs than what’s strictly necessary.

“If it’s okay with your whole strangers thing?”

“Yeah, that’s okay. It’s just as long as they’re not on my course, but I don’t know anyone at uni outside of that, so.”

“Okay.” Dilys smiles that stupidly bright smile again and says, “So.”

“So,” Faris says back.

“Anything else you needed to know?”

Faris looks down at his notes, the double page more black than white with how many words he’s managed to scrawl.

“I think we’re good now.”

“Cool. So. When’re you actually gonna draw me?”

“Next week, some time?” Faris suggests. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll give you the address.”

Faris turns the page to scrawl it down, well, the address of the café down the road from campus, _I’LL PICK YOU UP HERE_ next to it, and he rips it out. “Here you go.”

“Cool.” Dilys tucks the page into her purse and takes out her wallet, and she waves the waitress over once again. “So I’ll ask Joe if he wants to help out and I’ll call you about it?”

It takes Faris a split second to realise that Joe is Dilys’ boyfriend’s name. “Yeah, sure.”

They pay up and Dilys tips the waitress too much, and they leave the coffee shop.

“Are you getting the train or the bus now?” Faris asks.

“My boyfriend’s waiting for me in the pub down the road, actually,” Dilys explains.

Oh. “Oh. Okay.”

Faris doesn’t entirely feel jealousy as much as a notion there’s a reason behind that, a nasty premonition that he’s being considered as _predatory_.

As if she read it off his face, Dilys says, “Don’t take it personally.”

She gets up on her toes to pull him into another hug, and this time Faris doesn’t hesitate before he goes in for it. She’s incredibly warm in his arms, soft and yet much more solid than he would’ve expected it from someone this skinny. They pull apart sooner than he would’ve liked it.

“See you around, big boy.”

“Next week. At the latest.” He nods.

Faris leaves for his bus stop, in the opposite direction of where Dilys is headed, feeling light and heavy at the same time. He pulls his phone out to check the time and finds three unread texts from Tom, and he doesn’t bother with opening them just yet.


End file.
